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The Watering Hole, Saturday, January 16, 2016: Arrested; Development

After much public outcry, an arrest has finally been made in the terrorist occupation of public property by armed militants near Burns, Oregon. A 62-year-old misinformed man by the name of Kenneth Medenbach was arrested on charges of “suspicion of unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, a class C felony punishable by up to five years in prison.” As if things weren’t bad enough for the brain-addled wood carver, he was released pending charges of occupying federal land illegally on the condition that he not occupy any federal land in the future. Oops. And being caught driving around in a federally-owned vehicle reported as stolen is not one of the smarter things Medenbach has done. Two years ago, Medenbach was forced to vacate his business site when local town officials started enforcing solid waste disposal laws. Medenbach was not very good at keeping his property clean, which led to a settlement in which his landlords would agree to give up any hope of recovering the back rent he owed them if he would just leave their property. So he did.

It wasn’t the first time Medenbach had to leave his home. As he wrote in a Jan 28, 2014 Letter to the Editor:

I lost my job and got evicted from my house.

I’ve owned an acre of land in Crescent for about 10 years and decided to move there. It was either that or be homeless.

So I started clearing some areas and moving some storage sheds on the property, and then I saw these “Stop Work” signs on my storage sheds and the number of the Klamath County Code Enforcer. I called the Klamath County Code Enforcer, and he e-mailed to me the things I needed to do.
I found out I can’t do anything without a site plan review. I can’t even cut trees down to prevent a wildfire from going through my property.

I decided to do a little investigating, I googled in Klamath County Code. And one of the choices that popped up was Klamath Falls Land Use, Zoning and Planning lawyers. Some more investigating found a lawyer as a Klamath County Planning Commission member. Why?

Planning Commission members are volunteers. Lawyers don’t do anything for free. Then the light came on.

Confusing and strict county codes have to be passed, so bewildered citizens have to hire land use, zoning and planning lawyers. No doubt, a lawyer as a member of the Klamath County Planning Commission is there to pass as many ridiculous county codes as possible to keep lawyers employed and citizens of Klamath County broke or homeless.

Medenbach is just one of many who believe in the sovereign citizen movement. These are dangerous people because they do not recognize the authority of the federal government (the very government that keeps them safe enough to protest the government keeping them safe) and they believe they have a right to use deadly force to defend themselves against any federal agent trying to deprive them of what they want, which is usually something they’re not legally entitled to have. Like our land. Medenbach once described himself to a newspaper reporter in 1997 as a Constitution Ranger. He’s never liked the government and even went to jail over a dispute over how he used his property. He feels that because he’s not allowed to accumulate junk on his property and build a “dream home” out of old refrigerators and water heaters, that the government is abusing its power and trampling his rights. (They’re not.) He doesn’t believe that building codes carry the weight of law. (They do.) He says, “The Constitution states simply that only the people can pass laws through the electorate.” (It doesn’t, and that doesn’t even make any sense since “the people” and “the electorate” are the same thing, and we don’t pass the laws.) He claims the federal government doesn’t have the right to own property. (It does.) Back then he said he refused to get a driver’s license because it was an infringement on his freedom. (It wasn’t.) BTW, I hope he changed his opinion on that before he was arrested for driving a stolen federal vehicle. At least back then he said he wanted the revolution to be non-violent. He said that eventually groups like his Constitution Rangers would appeal to the mainstream of American citizens. (They don’t.) And neither do his friends illegally occupying our wildlife refuge.

This is our daily open thread. Feel free to discuss Ken Medenbach, the dangerous sovereign citizen movement, the actual US Constitution or anything else you want.

About Wayne A. Schneider

I'm a Liberal, Libertarian, Atheist Humanist. I believe that though the world is a dangerous place, it can be made better if we stop dividing ourselves by how we're different from each other, and reach out to each other through what we have in common. And that is that we are all human beings on this planet. Please remember that.

But when it’s the first time (as this was for Clinton the younger), the surrogate should be sure whereof she speaks, and had better stick to talking about her candidate, not the opponent. Unfortunately, Chelsea Clinton misrepresented Senator Sanders’ position, and her premiere performance on the stump backfired, producing a flood of political donations to Sanders.

Here’s what she said: “Senator Sanders wants to dismantle Obamacare, dismantle the [Children’s Health Insurance Program], dismantle Medicare, and dismantle private insurance.” Whew! She would have us believe that the Vermont senator is a one-man wrecking crew, an enraged King Kong – or, to be modern about it, a mendacious Darth Vader – proposing “to go back to an era – before we had the Affordable Care Act – that would strip millions and millions and millions of people off their health insurance.”

Uh, not exactly. In fact, not even close. As Karen Tumulty noted in The Washington Post, Bernie Sanders has long been a champion of a single-payer health care system as the only way to assure that all Americans receive medical coverage. Rather than “strip” millions and millions of people of their health insurance, he wants to be sure millions and millions of people actually get health insurance.

This was Sanders’ position as far back as 1993 when newly-elected President Bill Clinton put First Lady Hillary Clinton in charge of reforming our disheveled and unjust health care system. Her task force huffed and puffed in secret for months, calling in legions of experts and academics, ultimately producing a plan so complicated and impenetrable – not to mention unexplainable – that it would have collapsed of its own ponderous weight even if the Republicans had not propagandized it into a laughing stock of pretensions and inefficiencies that could only make matters worse.

This is why more and more Bernie supporters are swearing they won’t support Hillary ‘no matter what’. I have the luxury of saying that, because, living in Alabama, my vote won’t count for Bernie or Hillary.

The mistake in the ‘never Hillary’ thesis is that should it happen that she’s the candidate, and all of ‘us’ who prefer Bernie stay home, then ‘poof’ goes the country via the total fascist takeover. As Vinyl noted yesterday, “if Donald Trump wins 2016,
There will be hell toupee.”

My personal theory is that the feds aren’t afraid of Ya’llkayduh. They’re afraid of the “librul media”. If they moved in and if anyone received so much as a paper cut, even if the Bundy Buddies fired off a few rounds and no one returned fire, it would be framed as “the biggest federal law enforcement disaster since Waco”.

The three big purveyors of broadcast news would dutifully report that “there are questions”, PBS would host very serious discussions where some rightwhiner would lie without challenge, and FAUX”News” would jump straight past calling for Obama’s impeachment to calling for his summary execution; along with everyone to the left of Hitler for good measure.

I think that the lack of action is due to sheer cowardice but, though it pains me to say it, their cowardice has some justification.

Obama should have named me FBI Director, then. On day one, I would have powered the place down. No elec, no nat gas, no water, no sewer. I would have not permitted them to leave to pick stuff up, no deliveries of any kind, no exit except to surrender. Oh, and if even one of them chose to use a gun for anything other than suicide, here comes Waco.

I see zero logic in giving those bums any “reward” short of prison, or eternity, their choice. They’re worthless, they’re criminals, and they’re clearly stupid.

And fuck Fox News and the rest of the Librul Media. Let them eat cake.

I have to say…. the feds are letting the ridicule and the deliberate lack of attention do their work for them… as long as these fuckberks are arrested under the sedition law afterwards, one at a time….

Oh this is priceless. The Moron Militia sent one of their head imbeciles up a utility pole to scope out what they deemed a suspicious looking box. When you’re an idiot, such a find is a revelation of magnanimous proportions. These nitwits definitely qualify.

It’s hilarious to watch. The outrage. The looks of absolute despair that the government would do such a thing. What possible reason would the government have for monitoring such a place? Obviously, it’s all a part of the New World Order of Illuminati domination that has those at the top watching the little guy who is doing nothing wrong other than illegally occupying government property.

Or maybe the government likes to monitor a facility that is empty for a good part of the winter. Perhaps they feel it’s a good deterrent against poaching wildlife. Maybe, just maybe, those cameras are there so a**holes don’t steal trucks and drive them to the local Safeway to reload on snacks.

There’s also the possibility that the cameras belong to the electric company, since they seem to be pointed directly at a substation located near the property. Wouldn’t that be a hoot.

I’m watching From The Earth To The Moon on Turner Classic Movies, which was released in 1958. The science fiction of the plot isn’t as interesting to me as much as, near the beginning of the movie, the heads of all the armament companies, the military industrial complex of the post civil war years, were attending a meeting to lament the lack of profits due to peacetime.

“The revulsion against war . . . will be an almost insuperable obstacle for us to overcome. For that reason, I am convinced that we must begin now to set the machinery in motion for a permanent wartime economy.” Charles E. Wilson, president of General Electric (1940-42, 1945-50), head of the Office of Defense Mobilization (1951), and US Secretary of Defense (1953-57); in an internal memo, 1944.

A fact checker who has vetted all of the 2016 Republican Presidential debates was hospitalized for exhaustion during the sixth G.O.P. forum in Charleston on Thursday evening.

Martin Slessky, a former journalist who works for HonestyWatch, a Minnesota-based fact-checking organization, was resting comfortably after suffering what his doctors called a “total physical and mental collapse” during Thursday’s debate.

I like watching them, with a group all calling out the BS in turn. I wanted to watch the State of the Union Tuesday night but I lost so much sleep getting the Tide through the National Championship, I crashed a half hour before it started.

Aw shit, just a bit too tipsy to post tomorrow’s Sunday Roast tonight — celebrating Zoo Jr’s 28th birthday. I really don’t know how I have a kid that old, but anyhoo, I WILL post tomorrow…at some point. 😀

Now is the time to evict the Vanilla ISIS.
Red Dawn is playing on AMC so I’m sure they’re all gathered around the teevee holding their umm… guns. Yeah that’s it, guns.
Also, I’m reasonably sure they would appreciate some addition companionship with several of these being sent to them.

Saw you appear with Ed Black and Godless a few times in discussion….. I muted him eventually, he was interesting to read, but filled up my news feed…… Wil Wheaton’s bowel movements are a lot less frequent.